For 15 years, Francisco lived with a slow-growing tumour on the right side of his jaw. As a farmer and cattle herder from Toliara in southern Madagascar, he carried the burden of his condition in every part of daily life. Sleeping was uncomfortable. Working became difficult. Eating solid food was no longer possible.
“It really bothers me when I’m trying to sleep. When I go out or walk around, it gets very uncomfortable. When I’m working, it really bothers me,” he said. “As for eating, I can’t handle solid food at all, I can only eat soft food.”
What worried him most was not the ailment itself, but what could happen to his family.
“My biggest concern is how to support my family, not so much the thought that the illness might take my life,” he said. “What truly weighs on my mind is how to provide for my family.”
The Search for Healing
In 2024, Francisco made the journey to the Africa Mercy®. Pre-operative nurse team leader Ellee Rollins from the United States remembers him as a man marked by personal resilience.
“He told us that it took him about four days to get to the ship, most of that on foot, walking,” she recalled.
Francisco had already tried to find help. He had undergone surgery at a local hospital, but the tumor returned and continued growing, larger than before.
“I was scared and worried. I thought it was an incurable disease because it kept coming back,” he said.
He arrived believing this was his chance to finally heal. Yet the road ahead would stretch longer than he anticipated.
Waiting, Worry, and a Prayer Answered
Before surgery could be scheduled, Francisco needed to regain his strength and follow a nutrition plan. During this time, illness and infection delayed his admission more than once. Ellee recalls two admission dates that had to be cancelled and rescheduled. Weeks turned into months as Francisco went back and forth from the Hospital Outpatient Extension (HOPE) Center for follow-up appointments, screenings, and check-ins.
Through it all, he was known for his patience.
“He never once complained,” Ellee said.
Then, during that waiting period, Francisco received news that shook him. His wife called from home to say the family had run out of food. A drought had left little to harvest, and there was nothing to borrow from neighbors.
When Ellee asked how his family was doing, she remembers his eyes dropping to the ground.
“He admitted that his family was starving,” she said, “and he needed to get back to them, but he felt he could not return to them without getting healthy.”
Francisco could not work, and his family had stepped in to support him.
“Because I can’t work, they’re the ones supporting me now,” he said. “They don’t know what to do. But I’d rather be the one who’s sick than my wife and my children.”
In that moment, he turned to prayer with a desperation he had not known before.
“I truly didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “I’ve surrendered everything through prayer. Whether I live or die, I’ve truly entrusted everything about me to God.”
At the HOPE Centre, Francisco had started attending prayer gatherings. He says it changed him.
“Mercy Ships helped me begin praying, they motivate us to pray during gatherings at the HOPE Centre. They lead us in prayer every day,” he shared.
When Ellee heard about Francisco’s situation, she reached out to Mercy Ships’ chaplaincy team. They were able to send support to his wife and children.
For Francisco, it was more than provision. It felt like an answered prayer.
“There was something I asked for that was weighing heavily on my mind, so I prayed, and the problem that was weighing on my mind was resolved,” he said.
A Hard Conversation and a Deeper Resolve
Not long afterward, another blow came. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the team had to tell Francisco that his surgery would have to be postponed.
“It was a crushing feeling,” Ellee recalled, describing the day multiple patients were told their surgeries had to be cancelled.
Francisco was disappointed, but his faith had taken root in the waiting.
“My life is now fully in God’s hands,” he said. “I’m fully trusting God to take care of my family.”
He returned home still carrying the tumour, but holding on to hope.
Returning for Surgery
When Mercy Ships returned in 2025, Francisco came back. By then, the tumour had grown to a larger size, and it became difficult for him to close his mouth. The diagnosis was identified: a recurrent, large ameloblastoma of the right mandible.
Ellee explains why the surgery mattered so much.
“The location of the tumour puts his life at risk if it keeps growing and going to his airway,” she said. “These patients are at risk for starving to death or choking to death.”
This time, the long-awaited operation proceeded.
After recovery, Francisco could see and feel the difference.
“I’ve changed so much,” he said. “The biggest change I noticed is that the swelling I had is gone, and I’m feeling really healthy now.”
In the months of waiting, delays, prayer gatherings, and check-ins, Francisco formed a close bond with Ellee. When they reunited after surgery, Francisco struggled to find words that expressed what the friendship meant to him.
“She is really my best friend,” he said. “We ended up being friends who felt like relatives. We are like brother and sister.”
Even when she had been away, they stayed in touch. Francisco says his family knows her too. “My family, my wife and my children know her and they know that we are friends,” he said.
Before he left to return home, they prayed together.
Going Home
Francisco’s hope was simple: to return to his farm, provide for his family, and rebuild what the tumour stole from him.
“After the surgery, my deepest desire is to be with my family and enjoy a happy celebration, if we have the money,” he said.
And after years of bearing the hardship that reshaped his life, he spoke with gratitude, directing it to the people who cared for him, and to God. “To everyone who took care of me, may God bless them,” he said.
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